


Love and Death

by busterkuri



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: F/F, Love, Love Potion/Spell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busterkuri/pseuds/busterkuri
Summary: When she was just a girl, Maria fell in love.  Not with Manolo, not with Joaquim, but with the goddess of death.





	Love and Death

When Maria was just a girl, her life was decided for her and she didn't even know it.

A simple bet between La Muerte and Xibalba over who would marry Maria. It seemed obvious to them. After all, a girl, two boys. Well, obviously that's a love triangle.

Becoming a pawn in the betting games of two death gods, though, does something to a person. And when the two gods agreed on the bet, Maria saw them. Even someone as brave as Maria can get freaked out when you're only 6 and suddenly you're seeing a slimy, creepy form of death. As she was about to turn away, though, she saw La Muerte.

Beauty standing there in the form of a sugar skeleton. Maria was enthralled.

And then La Muerte vanished away. She rubbed her eyes and then figured it was just a trick. All the candles, all the decorations, she surely just saw something weird in the light. It was nothing. Back to life as normal.

When Maria was forced to leave San Angel and Joaquin joined the army, La Muerte and Xibalba made an agreement that there could be some...LIGHT manipulation going on. Xibalba focused on making sure Joaquin would come back home. La Muerte liked the idea of having an easy victory, but Xibalba convinced her that it just wouldn't be fun that way.

Meanwhile, La Muerte took over the job of watching over Maria. After all, if she never became “proper”, then she would never return to San Angel. When Maria forgot to do her homework, she'd grab it in the morning and find it had all been filled in. It smelled sweet. She wanted to keep it around, but she also wasn't going to let the work go to waste. When she didn't practice the dance moves she was supposed to do, she'd have dreams of dancing with a skeleton woman. She'd wake up knowing every move, and figuring that one night on the Day of the Dead had affected her subconscious more than she thought. A memory of a woman that didn't exist was stuck in her head.

When she finally came back home, she thought she saw a handshake on the roof of a building before her father swept her into his arms.

“Maria! You're back home! Come on, there's a bullfighting show today! And Joaquin comes back later! And--”

“Not all at once. Let me get back on my feet first.”

She never forgot Manolo and Joaquin. They were her friends, after all. But they were JUST her friends. Not lovers. Not crushes. Not--

“What the hell is she doing?! She's not in love with either of them?! And you didn't do anything about this?”

La Muerte stared at Maria, smiling her small smile as she walked into San Angel. “She's been away a while. She'll fall in love again once she sees them again.” Of course she knew otherwise. Of course she knew that, ultimately, she was only really interested in someone that she couldn't have. But that meant there was a third possibility. “What happens if we both lose?”

Xibalba got furious. “We don't...both...lose. Then we...we BOTH LOSE! That's not a bet at all!” He reached into his tar and pulled out a small bottle. “A little more...manipulation?”

La Muerte carefully considered both sides. On the one hand...they had never both lost before. It could be interesting. On the other hand, that means she wouldn't win. “Number 9?”

“Please, dear, number 3. This isn't THAT dire yet.”

A few drops on her food during the commotion at the feast and suddenly Maria was in love, head over heels for Manolo and...well, she could settle for Joaquin. The skeleton woman? Please. A hallucination. A fantasy. She might as well have wished to fall in love with a character from one of the books she read.

Coming back from a temporary death and hearing that Manolo was dead was heartbreaking. But that potion was still on her mind. The potion that whispered in her mind, “Hey, Joaquin's still alive! Time to marry him!”

And once she did, the effects wore off. You're no longer part of the bet, you no longer have any part of the manipulations. But everybody expected her to be with Joaquin now. They pointed at him. He didn't exactly light a fire under her, but it was a nice idea to keep the town safe. He'd fight off some bandits. He'd protect the town. And she'd get a divorce a few years from now and find someone else.

Of course, then the bandits actually did attack. And suddenly...Manolo is back alive? His relatives are here? There's a huge battle going on and--

Wait. Wait wait wait. Stop.

That's her.

There's not a hell of a lot of time to do much in the middle of a battle but...that's her. That's the skeleton woman. The one who haunted her dreams for years. She sniffs. There's so many scents but somewhere, in the middle of things, that same sweet scent that lingered on her homework.

There's so much going on, though. She gets kidnapped. She gets rescued. Manolo has died again? No he hasn't.

But he...he did save her. And he is still asking to marry her. And...well, she did have those feelings just a couple days ago, so surely they meant something?

As Maria got ready for the wedding, her bridesmaids were there, helping her get dressed. She had picked them all out. Except for one. She seemed the most excited for the wedding. How odd.

That smell.

“Can you leave, please? You four. Not you.” She pointed to the one she didn't know. And as the other four left, the fifth looked up and smiled.

“How'd you know?”

“That smell. You left it on my homework one time. I've never forgotten it. So sweet....you're her, right?”

She transformed before her eyes. “I'm not just 'her'. I'm La Muerte.”

The name instantly clicked. How could it not? “Ruler of the land of the remembered.”

“Continued ruler, thanks to you.”

“What...what do you mean?”

“There was a bet...” La Muerte told her the story. As she listened, Maria started off fascinated...then became furious.

“You used me. You let me...you...so I didn't really love either of them?”

La Muerte looked down. “If I had known...”

“If you had known WHAT?! If you had known that I didn't love them?! If you had known that they were just my friends? And then you—you refused to just call the bet off!”

“Xibalba is...persuasive. And we didn't know what we would've done. We still don't know.” La Muerte looked into Maria's eyes. “This bet. It means I keep the land of remembered for 100 years.”

Maria shook her head. What did that have to do with anything? And then it clicked. “So if I back down now...”

“There'll be a new bet. A new chance for him to cheat. A new chance for him to rule.”

Maria had to sit down. “I have to marry Manolo.”

“I'm sorry.” There was silence for several seconds. The church bells were ringing, but neither felt the need to rush. Maria had to think. La Muerte knew that pushing things would just make the decision harder.

“Is there...do you think...” It was stupid. She couldn't even get the words out.

La Muerte kissed Maria's forehead. “It will be a long time yet before that will happen. But maybe.”

She hugged La Muerte. She cried. She didn't know what else to do. She didn't even know if La Muerte was just humoring her. But the possibility that they could be together...it felt good.

The ceremony was wonderful. Manolo's relatives were there. His dead ones. Maria's father cried. Joaquin was the best man.

Their life together was nice. Manolo never understood why Maria didn't want kids, but she promised they would adopt a child when they felt ready. Manolo still did bullfights to honor his father. He didn't do them often. And he never killed, always performing, always taming the bulls and finishing the shows by petting them.

It was still too much, apparently. One bull was just too angry. It seemed calm when Manolo went to pet it. It wasn't.

Maria cried at his funeral. She had, in some way, loved him. Not romantically. Not sexually. As a person in her life that she loved.

A week passed. A month. Joaquin comforted Maria. She let him know she wasn't interested. He didn't care about that anymore. He knew they weren't going to be together. He still wanted to help her and the town. Joaquin became the one to erect the statue of Manolo where the battle took place.

Several months. Maria was teaching the girls of San Angel how to defend themselves. There were more than a few in the class who wanted to defend against bandits. Some wanted to bullfight. One just wanted to protect herself so she could see the world. She enjoyed it. She had never adopted, but she felt they were all her daughters in a sense. All coming from the School of Maria, all slowly learning from her how to survive in the world.

As she left one day, she smelled something sweet. Churros being sold. No. Not that.

She looked at the roofs. Maybe she was around again? Nobody. No silhouettes. Just empty roofs.

Maybe it was just a cake being baked. She dropped the thought. It had been years since the last time she saw La Muerte. Even on the Day of the Dead, she was nowhere to be seen.

And yet as she approached her house, there was a woman there. Holding a massive umbrella. Standing in a self-assured way. As she looked up, there was that smile, that sly, small smile.

And as Maria ran towards her, the sweet scent filled her nostrils.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago and never posted it anywhere. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
